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#60: 1845 Cheshire

This week’s cheese is a new-but-old Cheshire from H.S. Bourne. I’ll let John Bourne himself describe the cheese:

Our latest adventure into traditional cheese making is in trying to copy the process detailed in a book written in 1845.

We achieve this in the following way:

  1. We use grass fed milk as this was the practice at the time because Cheshire Cheese was made only in the summer months.
  2. We use the minimal quantity of starter culture to add security to the make process, whereas in 1845 reliance was placed on naturally occurring bacteria in the milk, in order to create the required acidity. As this period the rennet used to coagulate the milk was of animal origin which is what we use today.
  3. The development of the curd in the vat is a much slower process and a great deal of patience is required along with good care. We do have the advantage of a thermometer which in 1845 was not widely available. We are able to measure acidity development during cheese making through the use of modern titration, which was not available to cheese makers at the time.
  4. When we are satisfied that the process is completed we add salt to the curd which is then milled and filled into moulds.
  5. The cheese in spring was eaten young but later in the summer the cheese was matured up to 6 months.
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#53: Shropshire Blue

Until recently, Shropshire Blue had never been made in Shropshire. Who knew? Time for a history lesson.

In his 1995 book “The Great Cheeses of Great Britain and Ireland”, Robert Smith writes:

Shropshire Blue is a misnomer as the cheese was first produced in Scotland. Penicillium roqueforte produces the blue veins, and annatto gives a golden-orange colour. Ripened for 10–12 week, when it is said that the cheese has ‘a bit more bite than Stilton’. Makers include Colston Bassett, Cropwell Bishop, Long Clawson, Millway and Tuxford and Tebbutt.

This list of makers is also a list of the Midlands Stilton-producing powerhouses, and today includes Hartington, who make our Shropshire.

In 1982, Patrick Rance wrote a more detailed history of the early years of Shropshire Blue in “The Great British Cheese Book”, in his own distinctive style:

One of the blue cheeses made for some years at Castle Stuart Dairy, Inverness, was sponsored by Adamsons of Short Street, London, who sold it as Shropshire Blue. Andy Williamson, much respected in the Stilton world, went back to Scotland to make the new cheese, a lightly pressed blue with a deep red curd, which found a ready sale throughout the country in good cheese shops. Then orders were refused in spring 1980, with a promise of ‘more later’. For unexplained and unfathomable reasons the North of Scotland Milk Marketing Board had closed the dairy and the ‘more later’ came from Hankelow. Elliot Hulme and his Blue Cheshire cheesemaker Harry Hanlin showed their first public Shropshire Blue at the Nantwich Show in July 1980. They had been helped with advice from Charlie Chisholm, who managed the Castle Stuart Dairy when the cheese was made there.

All the milk for the cheese was unpsteurised, and came from Hankelow pastures. Mr Hulme had to quote EEC regulations against monopolistic restraint of trade to persuade the Milk Marketing Board to let him buy his extra milk for his enterprise from his co-operator.

Mr Hulme told me in September 1980 that first Shropshire Blues from Hankelow has proved a little firmer and deeper red than the cheeses made in Inverness. He has since ceased production, but in 1981 John Adamson and Company got Long Clawson Stilton Dairy interested in this cheese, coming back to the nineteenth-century conception of Stilton Cheshire.

Not much has changed with this tasty, orange coloured, blue cheese since then. Pasteurised milk is now used, as
is using animal rennet, so the cheese is not suitable for veggieburgers.

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#50: Yorkshire Pecorino Fresco

Pecorino is Italian sheep’s cheese: “pecora” means “sheep” in Italian. When I think of pecorino, I think of a hard, aged, nutty cheese, much like our Berkswell Ewe. That’s because stagionato (seasoned = aged) cheeses travel well, and are the varieties normally exported. But within Italy fresco (fresh = young) are also made, but rarely exported.

Mario Olianas is from Sardinia, but now lives in Leeds. He makes a classic Pecorino Fresco using milk from Harrogate and cultures from Italy. It’s only 30 days old, and is smooth, yogurty and sweet. Come enjoy our finest Italian Leodensian cheese.

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#49: Jo’s Cheese

OK. You got me. I love Leicestershire Handmade Cheese. There, I said it.

The Jo of “Jo’s Cheese” is half of Jo and David Clarke, who make these delicacies. This week’s offering is soft, creamy and delicate, but with a blue bite. “But it’s not blue” I hear you cry. Well, the unpasteurised milk is heated in a small vat and a blue Penicillium mould is added. However, the cheese is not the pierced (unlike their Battlefield Blue) which would encourage the veins to develop. The cheese is then ripened in high humidity, to allow a wonderful greeny grey rind to form.

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#47: Bosworth Field

Jo and David Clarke are famous for their Sparkenhoe, the only farmhouse Red Leicester made in the county. But
the make other cheeses on the farm too. The first addition was Battlefield Blue, primarily to give them something else to sell at farmers’ markets! Others followed, such as Jo’s Cheese, Sparkenhoe Blue, and — according to a recent Radio 4 program — soon to include a Stilton.

Bosworth Field is a made on the farm with unpasteurised milk. It’s a wonderful mould-ripened cheese, semi-soft with a white crumbly centre getting softer towards the grey mould.

It’s made with the raw milk from the dairy cows and is made in a small vat. The milk is heated gently and the curds are cut by hand and allowed to pitch for an hour, the curds are then placed in 5kg moulds and pressed gently over night and the following day placed in a brine bath. The cheese is then ripened for 2–3 months when the rind forms, sometimes taking on a gorgeous wrinkly appearance.

The name derives from the Battle of Bosworth Field, the final battle in the War of the Roses. The victory for the Lancastrians led to their leader, Henry, becoming the first Tudor king. The battle was thought to have been fought near Market Bosworth, but more recent surveys revealed it to have been two miles south-west of there, with part of the battleground being within the Clarke’s farm in Upton!

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#45: Sparkenhoe Vintage Red Leicester

Spot the difference!

You’d be right in confusing this week’s cheese with last’s. Feedback from our new Red Leicester was that customers liked it, but would prefer a bit more whoomph. Luckily, Sparkenhoe produce a version matured for 18 months rather than 6.

About the young cheese they write:

A traditional Red Leicester cheese made from the milk of our own cows, a true revival of a fabulous cheese, nutty, sweet with a citrus finish. Cloth bound and matured for 6 months on beech shelves.

whilst about the mature cheese:

A truly wow cheese with a completely unique taste. It is matured for 18 months by which time the salt crystals have started to reform. The caramel flavours are more exaggerated and the overall flavour is strong without being acidic.

Come give it a try!

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#44: Sparkenhoe Red Leicester

New year. New cheese.

Now that the Silly Season is behind us, we can get back on with the serious business: Cheese of the Week.

For Christmas, Mrs. Cheese bought me a copy of “Reinventing the Wheel: Milk, Microbes, and the Fight for Real Cheese”, by Bronwen and Francis Percival. The authors argue for Proper Cheese: shortening the distance between dairy farming and cheesemaking, and removing fertilizers, pasteurization, and microbial cultures from the process. Such practices are common today; there’s no need for any of them. Each changes the taste of the cheese, and takes it further from the environment in which it is fashioned.

This week’s cheese is a Red Leicester. Until now we’ve only stocked Thomas Hoe Aged Red Leicester (recently rebranded as Rutland Red). Customers love it: supermarket Leicesters are poor, and here was one they could really taste. But Thomas Hoe doesn’t satisfy the Percivals’ definition of Real Cheese: their maker, Long Clawson combines milk from 43 farms, beigeing the flavour.

This week’s cheese is not beige. Sparkenhoe is made by David and Jo Clarke of the Leicestershire Handmade Cheese Co. on their farm in Upton. Unpasteurised milk from the previous day’s milking is used in an old recipe, traditional animal rennet is added, and traditional plant dye annatto used, to give the cheese its rich orange colour. The cloth-bound cheeses are matured for six months, giving it a nutty flavour with a citrus finish. It’s fab, come give it a try.